A Discussion of the working conditions and professional standing of Adjunct Faculty at colleges in the United States

1. Adjunct Advocacy
 The Adjunct Edge
Conference
 10/26/2019
Dr. Paul H Comitz
Adjunct since 2000

2. Agenda
 Adjunct Fast Facts
 Adjunctification
 A Recurring
Conversation
 Uncomfortable
Questions
 Talking Points and
Engagement
 Advocacy Groups
 Resources and
References

3. Adjunct Fast Facts
Retrieved from https://drkassorla.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/refusing-the-adjunct-route/

4. Hiring Practices over 40 years
See https://precaricorps.org/about/why-we-need-a-foundation/

5. Adjunctification
 Overreliance on adjunct faculty members
 More than half of all US Faculty members now hold
part-time contingent appointments [Jenkins]
 Pervasive system of part-time “contingent” faculty
 Longstanding trend in higher education to higher
contingent part-time faculty
 UMUC – very few (if any) full-time teaching positions
 How long before we reach 90% adjuncts
 Denial
 See The Adjunct Crisis
Jenkins, Rob The Chronicle of Higher Education, Straight Talk about Adjunctification (2014, December 15)
retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/Straight-Talk-About/150881

6. A Recurring Conversation
 Campus Leadership
 Our adjuncts are very
important
 We need to treat our
adjuncts better
 We are listening to our
adjuncts
 We don’t want our
adjuncts to feel like
hired help
But Nothing ever happens
Real Concrete Reform is Needed

7. Uncomfortable Questions
 Adjunct faculty teach the
same courses as tenured
faculty
 Tenured faculty receive
approximately 4x (or more)
salary
 …plus generous benefits
 Suppose this was the case in
other labor markets?

8. Uncomfortable Observations
 Exploitation and low-
cost labor
 If you are a tenured
(or tenure-track)
faculty member, you
are both the
instrument and the
direct beneficiary of
exploitation.
 See
 https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Great-
Shame-of-Our/239148?cid=wcontentgrid_41_2

9. Uncomfortable Observations
 From the blog of Academe magazine:
 5300 Wealthy college Administrators
 6 and 7 figure salaries
 “Their careers are largely built on the backs of
800,000+ adjunct faculty”
An adjunct office

10. A Path Forward
 Campus Equity Week
 Usually the last calendar week in October
 October 21–25, 2019
 CEW 2015 - Called for a 15 minute “teach-out” by
adjunct faculty
 Join with full-time, tenure and non-tenure
track faculty
 Motivation for tenure track
 Complicity in the exploitation of adjunct labor
Engage your Colleagues, Administrators,
and Your Community

11. A Path Forward
Talking Points
 Employment practices that degrade both
faculty and students must be changed.
 See The Delphi Project
 Tools and resources to help create new faculty models
and better support faculty off the tenure track to
enhance higher education institutions.
 http://pullias.usc.edu/delphi/
https://www.campusequity2017.com/adjunct-facts

12. A Path Forward
Talking Points
 Approximately 75% of teaching faculty are
off the tenure track
 > 800,000 workers
 The New Faculty Majority
 See http://www.newfacultymajority.info/
This Majority Deserves a Voice
https://www.campusequity2017.com/adjunct-facts

13. A Path Forward
Talking Points
 The general public is misinformed.
 Precarity
 No job security
 Not predictability in schedule
 the adjunct professor is stuck in a perpetual juniority.
Regardless of experience, education, credentials,
publishing, participation in the university community--s/he
can never attain seniority as long as the employment status
remains the same.
 The Female Precariat
 Full time faculty can bump adjuncts in almost all
circumstances
https://www.campusequity2017.com/adjunct-facts

14. The adjunct condition is defined above all, materially, by being hired as an
adjunct. The key feature is that adjuncts are hired over and over again to do the
same job, each time with a nominally new contract letter or similar document.
Doing research on the adjunct phenomenon years ago, I was told by an authority
in higher education that the biggest single determinant in faculty pay is
SENIORITY. In the regression analyses, seniority as a determinant outweighed
gender; seniority outweighed ethnicity; seniority outweighed education level and
the other KSAs. With all due respect to any members of either Jackson Lewis or
organized labor reading this, seniority outweighed even presence or absence of a
union.
Employers in colleges and universities have addressed this material driver of
faculty pay--seniority--with near-fiendish effectiveness. The strategy is contingent
hiring. No matter how long a woman or a man teaches courses at the university of
your child's choice, the adjunct professor is stuck in a perpetual juniority.
Regardless of experience, education, credentials, publishing, participation in the
university community--s/he can never attain seniority as long as the employment
status remains the same. The strategy is particularly effective against adjuncts
hired by semester, but it is also effective against adjuncts hired with somewhat
longer contracts and against full-time 'lecturers', the universities' most recent
trend.

15. A Path Forward
Talking Points
 The general public is misinformed
 Adjunct salaries are approximately $2700 per
course nationwide
 Many adjuncts cannot earn a living wage

16. A Path Forward
Talking Points
 Many part-time contingent/adjunct faculty do
not have access to any benefits--health
insurance, retirement contributions, sick
leave, or even office space.
 No or limited health insurance
 Denial of unemployment insurance
 http://www.unemploymentforadjuncts.com/campaign/

17. Advocacy Groups
 New Faculty Majority
 The Adjuncts Crisis
 UBMC AFAC
 Many others
 Maryland Adjuncts
 Join the Group
 Offer your thoughts and ideas
 We will post information about other efforts to organize
 myUMBC
 https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/adjuncts/posts/55669
 On Facebook
 https://www.facebook.com/Maryland-Adjuncts-798516990232901/?ref=hl
You are invited to go to join the Facebook group
Maryland Adjuncts

18. What is The Ask ?
 Be reasonable ….
 But, end the exploitation
 See the NFM 7 Goals
 Compensation: Equity in Compensation: Equal Pay for Equal Work
 Job Security: Equity in Job Security: Automatic Contract Renewals after
Probationary Period
 Academic Freedom: Equity in Academic Freedom: Freedom from
Retaliation in All Teaching and Research
 Faculty Governance: Equity in Faculty Governance – Right to
Participate Equally for All Faculty Members
 Professional Advancement: Equity in Professional Advancement:
Progressive Salary Steps and Equal Access to Professional
Development Opportunities for All Faculty
 Benefits: Equity in Benefits: Access to the Same Health Insurance &
Retirement Benefits for All
 Unemployment Insurance: Equity in Unemployment Insurance: Access
to the Same Benefits as Other Seasonal Employees

19. References and Resources
 The New Faculty Majority
 Precaricorps
 Steve Street National Unemployment Compensation Initiative
 The Adjunct Crisis
 The Great Shame of Our Profession
 The Contingent Campus – Adjunctification And The Growth Of The
Academic “Precariat”
 Poster for Campus Equity Week
 Background Facts on Contingent Faculty Positions
 Straight Talk About Adjunctification
 Campus Equity Week Adjunct Facts

20. An Adjunct Journey
 Dr. Paul Comitz
 30 years as an adjunct
 Cerro Coso Community College
 Howard Community College
 Anne Arundel Community College
 University of Maryland Global Campus
 University of Maryland Baltimore
County
 Full time day-job in engineering
pcomitz@umbc.edu
Paul.comitz@faculty.umgc.edu